Sunday, December 13, 2009

Her Bounden Duty

[Irom Sharmila is]..."protesting the indefensible Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that has been imposed in Manipur and most of the Northeast since 1980. The Act allows the army to use force, arrest or shoot anyone on the mere suspicion that someone has committed or was about to commit a cognisable offence. The Act further prohibits any legal or judicial proceedings against army personnel without the sanction of the Central Government."

Googling for AFSPA (and Irom Sharmila) brings up an indie filmmaker's blog. The filmmaker, Kavita Joshi, has made a short film on Sharmila titled "My body my weapon".

Mere labels like "heroic" (or even "Gandhian") do not adequately describe this woman's commitment. She has no connection with her mother (who appears in the film and watches her daughter on the little LCD screen of a video camera), the state has completely isolated her from people and there's a very real chance that the government will just continue to ignore her. And yet she puts up a fight and views it as her duty.

Here's hoping her ten-year protest brings her - and Manipuris - the result that she and others have been fighting for.***

The Indian government does not wish to see its favorite dead revolutionary's image on the nib of a pen* but living heroes? Why, they are a nuisance, of course.